Raynal Bolling - Military Service - National Guard Aviation Pioneer

National Guard Aviation Pioneer

In the summer of 1915 Bolling, along with his brother-in-law and seven New York businessmen, all members of the American Aero Club, began taking flying lessons on property owned by the Wright Company near Garden City, New York. They contracted with an aviation school operated by Edson and Herbert Gallaudet for the use of their Gallaudet C-2 dual-controls trainer, which had a 50-horsepower Gnome motor, and the services of 20-year-old Peter Carl "Tex" Millman as an instructor. By the end of July, Millman reported several of his students including Bolling were ready to try for their American Aero Club license.

Bolling was in sympathy with the objectives of the Preparedness Movement, a group of influential Americans advocating military preparedness for involvement in World War I and drawn primarily from wealthy lawyers, bankers, academics, and politicians of the Northeast. Starting August 10, he was a participant in the first "Business Men's Camp", a volunteer summer military training camp organized and funded by the Preparedness Movement in Plattsburgh, New York, with the encouragement of Gen. Leonard Wood. There he organized a "motor machine gun troop" and arranged for Millman to fly Gallaudet's C-2, re-engined with a 100-horsepower Gnome and termed the "Military Tractor," from the camp to demonstrate its military usefulness. Despite a long delay caused by lack of a safe landing ground nearby, Millman made 20 flights over a three-day period. Bolling also arranged for use of the American Aero Club's six-person balloon, the America III, to make a demonstration for the trainees.

In September, after the Plattsburgh encampment was over, Bolling began preparations for organizing an aero company for the guard. He secured the services of three additional flying instructors and began recruiting personnel. He received $12,500 in funding from the Aero Club of America (ACA) and rented both the "Military Tractor" and Gallaudet's earlier prototype, the C-1. Authorization to form an aviation section in the Signal Corps of the Guard was announced by New York Governor Charles S. Whitman in October, and Bolling, who had just completed his flying instruction, was then appointed to the ACA's special committee to support its implementation.

In November 1915, Bolling was appointed as a first lieutenant in the New York National Guard and organized the "Aviation Detachment, First Battalion Signal Corps, National Guard, New York." During the winter of 1915-1916, when it reached its authorized strength of four officers and 40 enlisted men, the detachment was designated the "1st Aero Company" and was the first national guard aviation unit in the United States. The pilots of the company were prominent young New Yorkers, many of whom had already had some flight instruction over the summer. Within a month, half of the 48 states had applied to the ACA for financial assistance in purchasing aircraft and equipment.

Flying instruction began immediately at Garden City Aerodrome, with 56 flights in November alone. Throughout the winter of 1915-1916 the 1st Aero Company conducted flying operations, but by April continuing bad weather and engine problems slowed progress in training. The company returned its rented trainers to Gallaudet and acquired five more of disparate manufacture and age, including purchase of a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny". In addition, the company attended weekly classes in aircraft engines and the theory of aviation at the Columbia School Of Engineering.

The company, commanded by now-Captain Bolling, was mustered into federal service on July 13, 1916, and began a five-week encampment. The Army opened the "Signal Corps Aviation Station, Mineola" at the Garden City Aerodrome on July 22 and the 1st Aero Company received regulation training from two regulars, 1st Lieutenants Joseph E. Carberry and Walter G. Kilner, both veterans of the Punitive expedition in Mexico with the 1st Aero Squadron. On August 1 the aviation school received the first of forty new aircraft to be delivered over the next eight months, most of them Curtiss Jennies, authorization to buy fuel, and to hire three civilian instructors and seven mechanics as staff. In addition to the 1st Aero Company, the newly-formed 2nd Aero Company NYNG also arrived for training (but was not federalized or subject to Carberry's orders), as did 14 officers from the guards of other states, all of which enabled the company to train as a unit. Bolling passed a flying test for an expert pilot's license on October 25, receiving Fédération Aéronautique Internationale certificate No. 536, and passed the Reserve Military Aviator (RMA) qualification test.

Intended for service in Mexico, the 1st Aero Company never left Long Island but did train 25 of its own members as pilots before mustering out of federal service in November 1916. It is recognized as the Air National Guard's oldest unit and its lineage is carried by the 102d Rescue Squadron, New York ANG. The increasing numbers of Army aircraft at Mineola enabled the company to continue flying even after it returned to the jurisdiction of the national guard.

At the same time as these events involving Bolling's unit, a parallel private pilot training program was underway. After American troops under General John J. Pershing entered Mexico in March 1916, a group of wealthy New Yorkers underwrote another school at nearby Fort Jay in New York City. The organizer was attorney Phillip A. Carroll, who had been one of the nine men trained by Millman the previous summer. Called the Governors Island Training Corps, the small group of candidates began instruction on May 2 and trained daily under the authority and regulations of U.S. Army Eastern Department commanding general Leonard Wood with the goal of passing the RMA test and being commissioned in the new aviation section of the Signal Reserve Corps. Ultimately 17 men participated, ten completed the course, and seven including Carroll received ratings and commissions by May 1917.

In its second winter of operations but no longer under federal control, the 1st Aero Company continued training flights in conjunction with the small force of reserve candidates flying from Governors Island. On November 18, 1916, Bolling led a flight of seven Jennies from Mineola to New York harbor, where they were joined by a pair of JN-4s from the Governors Island school. One of Carroll's instructors in his own plane accompanied the group as the ten airplanes flew cross country together to Princeton, New Jersey, to attend the Yale-Princeton football game, the largest such formation of airplanes to date. In one of its final tactical maneuvers, led by Bolling on March 8, 1917, the 1st Aero Company participated in an exercise that involved 25 aircraft and half of the company's 44 personnel, simulating battlefield reconnaissance of camouflaged equipment and fortifications, and smoke from a simulated artillery battery. Despite their achievements, Bolling's report to the Chief of the Militia Bureau concluded that the development of national guard aviation was not practical at that time because of difficulties in attracting skilled mechanics into the guard to maintain the aircraft. As a result,and because of a curtailment of federal funding for the project, the War Department decided not to use national guard aero squadrons for service in the war. The 1st Aero Company was disbanded on May 23, 1917.

By that time the United States was at war with Germany. Bolling was called to active duty as a major in the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps on April 27, 1917, "for duty in connection with the organization of the 1st Reserve Aero Squadron," pursuant to authorization of the National Defense Act of 1916. On May 26, 1917, shortly after the national guard company was disbanded, he organized the new 154-man squadron, the first air reserve unit in the United States. The squadron became the 26th Aero Squadron after it deployed to France and had as its cadre the former guardsmen of the 1st Aero Company and the reserve military aviators with whom Bolling had trained in 1916-17.